Study of the mercury chalcogenide single crystals by means of a combination of laser pump-probe thermoreflectance technique with Fabry–Perot interferometer

Abstract

Near-surface layers of the mercury chalcogenide (HgSe and n-HgTe) single crystals with the electron concentration in the range of 7 × 1014–4.2 × 1018 сm−3 were studied using the laser pump-probe thermoreflectance (TR) technique combined with the Fabry–Perot (FP) interferometer in the wide temperature interval of 10–300= K. The TR–FP measurements were carried out toward samples with a freshly etched reflective surface. As a result, a minimum in the time dependence of the TR–FP signal and sign inversion of the TR–FP signal were revealed both for HgSe and n-HgTe within the specified temperature range. Noticeably, both anomalies were observed for n-HgTe at substantially lower temperatures than that for HgSe. The proposed qualitative interpretation of the observed anomalies is based on the hypothesis of two types of Weyl nodes located in the Brillouin zone of mercury chalcogenides involving specific for the Weyl semimetals energy barriers, separating the bulk Weyl fermion helical states from the topologically protected Fermi-arc surface states.